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Brooklyn College's Israel Event Sparks Nazi-Name Calling, Insanity
By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 6, 2013
Modified Feb 6, 2013
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 6, 2013
Modified Feb 6, 2013
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Brooklyn College + Israel = Controversy. It has happened before, it is happening now, and it will happen again. And yet, each time it happens, we can't help but rubberneck. So, let's sit back and follow the latest attack on academic freedom, shall we?
The story began last month when the CUNY school announced that its political science department was co-sponsoring an event on Thursday, February 7, with two speakers who are part of the BDS movement (that's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions for those who missed their attempt to sway the Park Slope Co-Op). And then things went predictably crazy.
How crazy? So crazy that last month Councilman Lewis Fidler sent the school's president, Karen Gould, a letter in which he essentially threatened the school's funding if they didn't cancel the event [PDF]. "To give official support and sponsorship to speakers who equate terrorists with progressives and the Israeli people with Nazis—ideas which strike us as either anti-semitic or simply ignorant—is wrong and promotes the worst kind of hate," he wrote. "We believe in the principle of academic freedom. However, we also believe in the principle of not supporting schools whose programs we, and our constituents, find to be odious and wrong."
Luckily for people who actually believe in academic freedom and not just the idea of it, the school isn't backing down. In a statement, President Gould explained that not only will the school go on with the event, but will also revisit the many sides of the issue: "Over the next two months, with the support of the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities and other campus units and community groups, we will provide multiple opportunities for discussion about the topics and related subject matter at the heart of this controversy."
And today the New York Civil Liberties Union chimed in with their own letter to Fidler regarding his "stunningly impoverished vision of academic freedom." Honestly, just read the whole below because it is great:
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